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Bibliography
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(2004)
Le Morte Darthur (Norton Critical Editions)
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(1996)
King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table
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(1995)
Arthur and the Sword
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(1992)
Witch of the North
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(1986)
King Arthur and His Knights
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Le Morte Darthur is undoubtedly the last definitive interpretation of the Arthurian myth before the dawn of the English Renaissance. Yet the identity of its author, Sir Thomas Malory, the knight prisoner, remains as elusive and as mysterious as the knights who inhabit his book. How can the extoller of knightly honor, courtly love and chivalric duty be himself accused of robbery, extortion, attempted murder and rape -- felonious acts which belie those noble sentiments expressed throughout the pages of the Morte? So the question arises -- who is the historical Sir Thomas Malory and how can we account for the massive discrepancy between the man and his work?
Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire "was born into a gentry family that had lived for centuries in the English Midlands near the point where Warwickshire, Leicestershire, and Northamptonshire meet. His father, John Malory, was an esquire with land in all three counties, but was primarily a Warwickshire man, being twice sheriff, five times M.P. and for many years a justice of the peace for that county. John married Philippa Chetwynd... and they had at least three daughters, and one son, Thomas, who was probably born within a year either way of 1416".
Of Sir Thomas Malory’s early years, "almost nothing is known." As a young man of 23, records reveal that he was a "respectable country landowner with a growing interest in politics". He "dealt in land, witnessed deeds for his neighbours, acted as a parliamentary elector, and by 1441 had become a knight" (115). As P.J.C.Field notes: "In late medieval England, taking up knighthood could be expensive, and doing so may imply political and social ambition". Sir Thomas married Elizabeth Walsh of Wanlip in Leicestershire, who later bore him a son, Robert. Perhaps something of the mythically infamous rogue breaks through this concordant scene when in 1443, Malory was "charged with wounding and imprisoning Thomas Smith and stealing his goods, but the charge apparently fell through". However, in 1445, he "was elected M.P. for Warwickshire" and served "on commissions to assess tax-exemptions in the county".
The year 1449 "was a time of increasing division and unrest in the country, which was eventually to lead to civil war". Up to this time, Malory’s life seems to have all the markings of a traditional country gentleman, but then "with the new decade," observes Field, "Malory’s life, for no known reason, underwent a startling change". What this change entailed is obvious from the following account, but the impetus behind it remains enigmatic, although party politics, as usual, may have played a pivotal role.
On January 4, 1450, "<Malory> and 26 other armed men were said to have laid an ambush for <the Duke of> Buckingham in the Abbot of Combe's woods near Newbold Revel" (116).
On May 23, 1450, Malory "allegedly rapes Joan Smith at Coventry. The charge is not of abduction but of rape in the modern sense: it says cum ea carnaliter concubit, ‘he carnally lay with her.’ It was, however, brought not by Joan under common law, but by her husband under a statute of Richard II intended to make elopement into rape even when the woman consented".
On May 31, 1450, Malory "allegedly extorts money by threats from two residents of Monks Kirby".
On August 6, 1450 Malory "allegedly rapes Joan Smith again and steals 40 pounds worth of goods from her husband in Coventry".
On August 31, 1450, Malory "allegedly commits extortion from a third Monks Kirby resident".
On March 5, 1451, a warrant is issued for his arrest, and a few weeks later "he and various accomplices were alleged to have stolen cattle in Warwickshire -- 7 cows, 2 calves, 335 sheep, and a cart worth 22 pounds at Cosford, Warwickshire. Buckingham, taking with him 60 men from Warwickshire, attempts to apprehend Malory, but "in the meantime Malory apparently raided Buckingham's hunting lodge, killed his deer, and did an enormous amount of damage" -- 500 pounds worth.
Malory was finally "arrested and imprisoned at Coleshill, but after two days escaped by swimming the moat <at night>. He then reportedly twice raided Combe Abbey with a large band of <one hundred> men, breaking down doors, insulting the monks, and stealing a great deal of money". By January 1452, Malory "was in prison in London, where he spent most of the next eight years waiting for a trial that never came".
Yet Malory’s adventures continued. He was "bailed out several times, and on one occasion seems to have joined an old crony on a horse-stealing expedition across East Anglia that ended in Colchester jail. He escaped from there too, ‘using swords, daggers, and langues-de-boeuf’ (a kind of halberd), but was recaptured and returned to prison in London. After this date he was shifted frequently from prison to prison, and the penalties put on his jailers for his secure keeping reached a record for medieval England".
"During Henry VI's insanity, when the Duke of York was Lord Protector, Malory was given a royal pardon," which the court dismissed. Once the Yorkists invaded in 1460 and had expelled the Lancastrians, Malory was "freed and pardoned. He was never tried on any of the charges brought against him".
Malory repaid his deliverers by taking "part in Edward IV and the Earl of Warwick's expedition against the castles of Alnwick, Bamburgh, and Dunstanborough..., which the Lancastrians had seized. The castles were taken, and Malory settled down to a more peaceful life".
Yet, Malory seems to have "changed sides" once more. In 1468 and again in 1470, "he was named in lists of irreconcilable Lancastrians who were excluded from royal pardons for any crimes they might have committed. Most of those excluded were at liberty; but the Morte Darthur shows us that Malory was in prison, completing his work".
In October 1470, when the Lancastrians returned to power, "among their first acts was freeing those of their party who were in London prisons. Six months later, Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel died and was buried under a marble tombstone in Greyfriars, Newgate, which, despite its proximity to one of the jails in which he had been imprisoned, was the most fashionable church in London. On the day of Malory's death, King Edward landed in Yorkshire, and two months later the Yorkists were back in power".
Although "the original tombstone was destroyed, ... its inscription survives in this early sixteenth-century transcript, which calls <Malory> valens miles (‘a valiant knight’) of the parish of Monks Kirby in Warwickshire and says he died on 14 March 1470, which (since the year began on 25 March) is what is now called 1471". And so, the ambiguity, contradiction, and paradox which surround the man remain.
-Sir Thomas Malory Society
Sir Thomas Malory (c. 1405 – 14 March 1471) was an English writer, the author or compiler of Le Morte d'Arthur. The antiquary John Leland (1506–1552) as well as John Bale believed him to be Welsh, but most modern scholars, beginning with G.L. Kittridge in 1894, assume that he was Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire, who was a knight, land-owner and Member of Parliament. The surname appears in various spellings, including, Mallerre, Maillorie, Mallory, Mallery, Maelor, Maleore, and as it seems he may have spelled it, Malleorré. The name comes from the Old French adjective maleüré (from Latin male auguratus) meaning ill-omened or unfortunate.
Biography
Virtually all that is known about Malory the writer (there were at least six Thomas Malorys alive in the 15th century when Le Morte d'Arthur was written), for certain, is what can be gathered from the prayers in the Winchester Manuscript. At the end of the "Tale of King Arthur," being Books I-IV in Caxton, is written:
"For this was written by a knight prisoner Thomas Malleorre, that God send him good recovery."
At the end of "The Tale of Sir Gareth," Caxton Book VII:
"And I pray you all that readeth this tale to pray for him that this wrote, that God send him good deliverance soon and hastily."
At the conclusion of the "Tale of Sir Tristram," Caxton's VIII-XII:
"Here endeth the second book of Sir Tristram de Lyones, which was drawn out of the French by Sir Thomas Malleorre, knight, as Jesu be his help."
Finally, at the conclusion of the whole book:
"The Most Piteous Tale of the Morte Arthure Sanz Gwerdon par le shyvalere Sir Thomas Malleorre, knight, Jesu aide ly pur votre bon mercy."
However, all these are replaced by Caxton with a final colophon reading:
"I pray you all gentlemen and gentlewomen that readeth this book of Arthur and his knights, from the beginning to the ending, pray for me while I am alive, that God send me good deliverance and when I am dead, I pray you all pray for my soul. For this book was ended the ninth year of the reign of King Edward the Fourth by Sir Thomas Maleore, knight, as Jesu help him for his great might, as he is the servant of Jesu both day and night."
It must be said that the author must have been from a rich enough family to ensure his education was sufficient to the point of being able to read French, and also to have been familiar with the Yorkshire dialect. A claimant's age must also fit the time of writing.
Welsh Poet
This knight prisoner has led many to assume various identities for Malory, or Malleorre as it seems he spelled it. The earliest conclusion was made by John Bale, a 16th century antiquarian, who declared that Malory was Welsh, hailing from Maloria on the River Dee. This candidate received further support from Sir John Rhys, who, in 1893, proclaimed that the alternative spelling indicated an area straddling the England-North Wales border, Maleore in Flintshire, and Maleor in Denbigh. This would possibly relate Malory to Edward Rhys Maelor, a fifteenth-century Welsh poet.
Thomas Malory of Papworth
A second candidate was presented by A. T. Martin, another antiquarian, who proposed in an article written in 1897, that the author was Thomas Malory of Papworth St. Agnes in Huntingdonshire. The brief biography of Malory goes thus: Born on 6 December 1425 at Morton Court, Shropshire, he was the eldest son of Sir William Malory, representative of Parliament to Cambridgeshire. Thomas inherited his father's estates in 1425, and was placed in the wardship of the King for reasons unknown, remaining there until within four months of his death, in 1469. Nothing else is known of him, save one peculiar incident, discovered by William Matthews. In a collection of chancery proceedings, it is heard of a petition brought against Malory by Richard Kyd, parson of Papworth, claiming that Malory ambushed him on a November evening, and took him from Papworth, to Huntingdon, and then to Bedford, to Northampton, all the while being threatened on his life to either forfeit his church unto Malory, or else give £100. The outcome of this is unknown, but it seems to indicate something more than an average country gentleman, and his wardship explains the "knight prisoner."
Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel
The third contender, is not only most well documented, but most popular as a claimant. This is Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire. H. Oskar Sommer first put forth this theory in his 1890 edition of Le Morte d'Arthur and Harvard Professor George Lyman Kittredge provided the evidence in 1896. Kittredge showed Malory as a soldier and member of Parliament who fought at Calais with Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. However, a biography by Edward Hicks in 1928, revealed him as a thief, bandit, kidnapper, and rapist, hardly in keeping with the high chivalric standards in the book.
This Malory was born to Sir John Malory of Winwick and Lady Phillipa Malory, heiress of Newbold. Thomas, their only son, was born between 1393 and 1416. he became a professional soldier and served under the Earl of Warwick, but all dates are vague, and it is unknown how he became distinguished. He acted as an elector in Northamptonshire, but in 1443 was accused, along with a accomplice, Eustace Barnaby, of attacking, kidnapping, and stealing £40 of goods from Thomas Smythe. Nothing became of this charge, and he soon married a woman named Elizabeth Walsh,who would bear him a son, Robert.
The same year, Malory was elected to Parliament, serving at Westminster for the rest of 1443, and being appointed to a Royal Commission charged with the distribution of monies to impoverished towns in Warwickshire. Despite the charge against him, he seemed to have remained in good standing amongst his peers.
However, this would change rapidly, when, in 1450 he was accused of ambushing the Duke of Buckingham, Humphrey Stafford, along with a gang of 26 other men. The accusation was never proved. In May of that year, he was next accused of exhorting 100 shillings from Margaret King and William Hales of Monks Kirby, and, the next August, of committing the same injury against John Mylner, for 20 shilings.
In between, in the June of 1450, he found the time to break into the house of Hugh Smyth of Monks Kirby, stealing £40 pounds of goods, and raping his wife. Eight weeks later, Malory alone was charged with attacking the same woman, in Coventry. Nine months later, on 15 March 1451, he and 19 others were ordered to be arrested. Nothing came of this and in the following months, the Malory gang racked up crimes consisting of violent robberies, rising past 100. At one point, he was arrested and imprisoned in Maxstoke Castle, but he escaped, swam the moat, and regrouped with his gang at Newbold Revel.
This continued, until the matter finally came to trial on 23 August 1451, in Nuneaton. Those accused included he and several others, with numerous charges. The judgement went against Malory and he was in London's Marshalsea prison by 1452, where he remained for a year. His response was to plead "not guilty," and demand a retrial with a jury of men from his own county. This never took place, but he was released. In March, he was back in Marshalsea, from which he escaped two months after, possibly by bribing the guards and gaolers. After a month, he was back in prison, and was held until the following May, released on a bail of £200, a considerable sum.
Next, when Malory was to answer for his crimes, he could not be found. This was because he was in custody in Colchester, accused of more crimes involving robbery and the stealing of horses. Once again, he escaped, and was at liberty until November, when he was apprehended and returned to Marshalsea, under penalty for escape of £1000.
He seems to have lain low for a few years, being either imprisoned in Newgate Prison or Marshalsea. He obtained bail at least once, but was soon locked up again for failing to pay back loans made to him by various people for his extensive bail payments. All these terms in prison would have given him ample time to write Le Morte d'Arthur.
In and out of prison for years, he was pardoned at the ascension of Edward IV to the throne in 1461. After this, little is heard, spare that a grandson, Nicholas, was born to Robert, who soon died<clarification needed>. Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel died on 14 March 1470, and was buried with adequate splendor in Greyfriar's Chapel, near Newgate Prison. His being interred here suggests that his misdeeds were forgiven and that he possessed some wealth, either the result of his robberies, or some unknown patron, possibly Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, under whom Malory may have spent time as a payed spy.
Malory's tomb read:
"HIC JACET DOMINUS THOMAS MALLERE, VALENS MILES OB 14 MAR 1470 DE PAROCHIA DE MONKENKIRBY IN COM WARICINI,"
meaning:
"Here lies Sir Thomas Mallere, Valiant Knight. Died 14 March 1470, in the parish of Monkenkirby in the county of Warwick."
His grave was lost when Greyfriar's was dissolved by Henry VIII. His grandson, Nicholas lived to inherit his lands and was respected enough to be appointed High Sheriff in 1502.
Thomas Malory of Hutton Conyers
The fourth and final contender for the title of authorship is the little known Thomas Malory from Hutton Conyers, in Yorkshire. His claim was put forth by the aforementioned Professor William Matthews of California University. This claim was met with little enthusiasm, despite considerable linguistic evidence, which demonstrates that the author spoke a regional dialect which matches with the writing of Le Morte d'Arthur. This Malory's not being a knight is considered a large flaw.
In Fiction
A young Malory appears as a character at the end of T.H. White's book The Once and Future King, which was based on Le Morte d'Arthur; this cameo is included in the Broadway musical Camelot. Many modern takes on the Arthurian legend have their roots in Malory, including John Boorman's 1981 movie Excalibur, which includes selected elements of the book. Parts of Malory's book form a key element in Cynthia Harnett's childrens novel "The Load of Unicorn".
-Wikipeadia, the free encyclopedia
Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire "was born into a gentry family that had lived for centuries in the English Midlands near the point where Warwickshire, Leicestershire, and Northamptonshire meet. His father, John Malory, was an esquire with land in all three counties, but was primarily a Warwickshire man, being twice sheriff, five times M.P. and for many years a justice of the peace for that county. John married Philippa Chetwynd... and they had at least three daughters, and one son, Thomas, who was probably born within a year either way of 1416".
Of Sir Thomas Malory’s early years, "almost nothing is known." As a young man of 23, records reveal that he was a "respectable country landowner with a growing interest in politics". He "dealt in land, witnessed deeds for his neighbours, acted as a parliamentary elector, and by 1441 had become a knight" (115). As P.J.C.Field notes: "In late medieval England, taking up knighthood could be expensive, and doing so may imply political and social ambition". Sir Thomas married Elizabeth Walsh of Wanlip in Leicestershire, who later bore him a son, Robert. Perhaps something of the mythically infamous rogue breaks through this concordant scene when in 1443, Malory was "charged with wounding and imprisoning Thomas Smith and stealing his goods, but the charge apparently fell through". However, in 1445, he "was elected M.P. for Warwickshire" and served "on commissions to assess tax-exemptions in the county".
The year 1449 "was a time of increasing division and unrest in the country, which was eventually to lead to civil war". Up to this time, Malory’s life seems to have all the markings of a traditional country gentleman, but then "with the new decade," observes Field, "Malory’s life, for no known reason, underwent a startling change". What this change entailed is obvious from the following account, but the impetus behind it remains enigmatic, although party politics, as usual, may have played a pivotal role.
On January 4, 1450, "<Malory> and 26 other armed men were said to have laid an ambush for <the Duke of> Buckingham in the Abbot of Combe's woods near Newbold Revel" (116).
On May 23, 1450, Malory "allegedly rapes Joan Smith at Coventry. The charge is not of abduction but of rape in the modern sense: it says cum ea carnaliter concubit, ‘he carnally lay with her.’ It was, however, brought not by Joan under common law, but by her husband under a statute of Richard II intended to make elopement into rape even when the woman consented".
On May 31, 1450, Malory "allegedly extorts money by threats from two residents of Monks Kirby".
On August 6, 1450 Malory "allegedly rapes Joan Smith again and steals 40 pounds worth of goods from her husband in Coventry".
On August 31, 1450, Malory "allegedly commits extortion from a third Monks Kirby resident".
On March 5, 1451, a warrant is issued for his arrest, and a few weeks later "he and various accomplices were alleged to have stolen cattle in Warwickshire -- 7 cows, 2 calves, 335 sheep, and a cart worth 22 pounds at Cosford, Warwickshire. Buckingham, taking with him 60 men from Warwickshire, attempts to apprehend Malory, but "in the meantime Malory apparently raided Buckingham's hunting lodge, killed his deer, and did an enormous amount of damage" -- 500 pounds worth.
Malory was finally "arrested and imprisoned at Coleshill, but after two days escaped by swimming the moat <at night>. He then reportedly twice raided Combe Abbey with a large band of <one hundred> men, breaking down doors, insulting the monks, and stealing a great deal of money". By January 1452, Malory "was in prison in London, where he spent most of the next eight years waiting for a trial that never came".
Yet Malory’s adventures continued. He was "bailed out several times, and on one occasion seems to have joined an old crony on a horse-stealing expedition across East Anglia that ended in Colchester jail. He escaped from there too, ‘using swords, daggers, and langues-de-boeuf’ (a kind of halberd), but was recaptured and returned to prison in London. After this date he was shifted frequently from prison to prison, and the penalties put on his jailers for his secure keeping reached a record for medieval England".
"During Henry VI's insanity, when the Duke of York was Lord Protector, Malory was given a royal pardon," which the court dismissed. Once the Yorkists invaded in 1460 and had expelled the Lancastrians, Malory was "freed and pardoned. He was never tried on any of the charges brought against him".
Malory repaid his deliverers by taking "part in Edward IV and the Earl of Warwick's expedition against the castles of Alnwick, Bamburgh, and Dunstanborough..., which the Lancastrians had seized. The castles were taken, and Malory settled down to a more peaceful life".
Yet, Malory seems to have "changed sides" once more. In 1468 and again in 1470, "he was named in lists of irreconcilable Lancastrians who were excluded from royal pardons for any crimes they might have committed. Most of those excluded were at liberty; but the Morte Darthur shows us that Malory was in prison, completing his work".
In October 1470, when the Lancastrians returned to power, "among their first acts was freeing those of their party who were in London prisons. Six months later, Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel died and was buried under a marble tombstone in Greyfriars, Newgate, which, despite its proximity to one of the jails in which he had been imprisoned, was the most fashionable church in London. On the day of Malory's death, King Edward landed in Yorkshire, and two months later the Yorkists were back in power".
Although "the original tombstone was destroyed, ... its inscription survives in this early sixteenth-century transcript, which calls <Malory> valens miles (‘a valiant knight’) of the parish of Monks Kirby in Warwickshire and says he died on 14 March 1470, which (since the year began on 25 March) is what is now called 1471". And so, the ambiguity, contradiction, and paradox which surround the man remain.
-Sir Thomas Malory Society
Sir Thomas Malory (c. 1405 – 14 March 1471) was an English writer, the author or compiler of Le Morte d'Arthur. The antiquary John Leland (1506–1552) as well as John Bale believed him to be Welsh, but most modern scholars, beginning with G.L. Kittridge in 1894, assume that he was Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire, who was a knight, land-owner and Member of Parliament. The surname appears in various spellings, including, Mallerre, Maillorie, Mallory, Mallery, Maelor, Maleore, and as it seems he may have spelled it, Malleorré. The name comes from the Old French adjective maleüré (from Latin male auguratus) meaning ill-omened or unfortunate.
Biography
Virtually all that is known about Malory the writer (there were at least six Thomas Malorys alive in the 15th century when Le Morte d'Arthur was written), for certain, is what can be gathered from the prayers in the Winchester Manuscript. At the end of the "Tale of King Arthur," being Books I-IV in Caxton, is written:
"For this was written by a knight prisoner Thomas Malleorre, that God send him good recovery."
At the end of "The Tale of Sir Gareth," Caxton Book VII:
"And I pray you all that readeth this tale to pray for him that this wrote, that God send him good deliverance soon and hastily."
At the conclusion of the "Tale of Sir Tristram," Caxton's VIII-XII:
"Here endeth the second book of Sir Tristram de Lyones, which was drawn out of the French by Sir Thomas Malleorre, knight, as Jesu be his help."
Finally, at the conclusion of the whole book:
"The Most Piteous Tale of the Morte Arthure Sanz Gwerdon par le shyvalere Sir Thomas Malleorre, knight, Jesu aide ly pur votre bon mercy."
However, all these are replaced by Caxton with a final colophon reading:
"I pray you all gentlemen and gentlewomen that readeth this book of Arthur and his knights, from the beginning to the ending, pray for me while I am alive, that God send me good deliverance and when I am dead, I pray you all pray for my soul. For this book was ended the ninth year of the reign of King Edward the Fourth by Sir Thomas Maleore, knight, as Jesu help him for his great might, as he is the servant of Jesu both day and night."
It must be said that the author must have been from a rich enough family to ensure his education was sufficient to the point of being able to read French, and also to have been familiar with the Yorkshire dialect. A claimant's age must also fit the time of writing.
Welsh Poet
This knight prisoner has led many to assume various identities for Malory, or Malleorre as it seems he spelled it. The earliest conclusion was made by John Bale, a 16th century antiquarian, who declared that Malory was Welsh, hailing from Maloria on the River Dee. This candidate received further support from Sir John Rhys, who, in 1893, proclaimed that the alternative spelling indicated an area straddling the England-North Wales border, Maleore in Flintshire, and Maleor in Denbigh. This would possibly relate Malory to Edward Rhys Maelor, a fifteenth-century Welsh poet.
Thomas Malory of Papworth
A second candidate was presented by A. T. Martin, another antiquarian, who proposed in an article written in 1897, that the author was Thomas Malory of Papworth St. Agnes in Huntingdonshire. The brief biography of Malory goes thus: Born on 6 December 1425 at Morton Court, Shropshire, he was the eldest son of Sir William Malory, representative of Parliament to Cambridgeshire. Thomas inherited his father's estates in 1425, and was placed in the wardship of the King for reasons unknown, remaining there until within four months of his death, in 1469. Nothing else is known of him, save one peculiar incident, discovered by William Matthews. In a collection of chancery proceedings, it is heard of a petition brought against Malory by Richard Kyd, parson of Papworth, claiming that Malory ambushed him on a November evening, and took him from Papworth, to Huntingdon, and then to Bedford, to Northampton, all the while being threatened on his life to either forfeit his church unto Malory, or else give £100. The outcome of this is unknown, but it seems to indicate something more than an average country gentleman, and his wardship explains the "knight prisoner."
Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel
The third contender, is not only most well documented, but most popular as a claimant. This is Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire. H. Oskar Sommer first put forth this theory in his 1890 edition of Le Morte d'Arthur and Harvard Professor George Lyman Kittredge provided the evidence in 1896. Kittredge showed Malory as a soldier and member of Parliament who fought at Calais with Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. However, a biography by Edward Hicks in 1928, revealed him as a thief, bandit, kidnapper, and rapist, hardly in keeping with the high chivalric standards in the book.
This Malory was born to Sir John Malory of Winwick and Lady Phillipa Malory, heiress of Newbold. Thomas, their only son, was born between 1393 and 1416. he became a professional soldier and served under the Earl of Warwick, but all dates are vague, and it is unknown how he became distinguished. He acted as an elector in Northamptonshire, but in 1443 was accused, along with a accomplice, Eustace Barnaby, of attacking, kidnapping, and stealing £40 of goods from Thomas Smythe. Nothing became of this charge, and he soon married a woman named Elizabeth Walsh,who would bear him a son, Robert.
The same year, Malory was elected to Parliament, serving at Westminster for the rest of 1443, and being appointed to a Royal Commission charged with the distribution of monies to impoverished towns in Warwickshire. Despite the charge against him, he seemed to have remained in good standing amongst his peers.
However, this would change rapidly, when, in 1450 he was accused of ambushing the Duke of Buckingham, Humphrey Stafford, along with a gang of 26 other men. The accusation was never proved. In May of that year, he was next accused of exhorting 100 shillings from Margaret King and William Hales of Monks Kirby, and, the next August, of committing the same injury against John Mylner, for 20 shilings.
In between, in the June of 1450, he found the time to break into the house of Hugh Smyth of Monks Kirby, stealing £40 pounds of goods, and raping his wife. Eight weeks later, Malory alone was charged with attacking the same woman, in Coventry. Nine months later, on 15 March 1451, he and 19 others were ordered to be arrested. Nothing came of this and in the following months, the Malory gang racked up crimes consisting of violent robberies, rising past 100. At one point, he was arrested and imprisoned in Maxstoke Castle, but he escaped, swam the moat, and regrouped with his gang at Newbold Revel.
This continued, until the matter finally came to trial on 23 August 1451, in Nuneaton. Those accused included he and several others, with numerous charges. The judgement went against Malory and he was in London's Marshalsea prison by 1452, where he remained for a year. His response was to plead "not guilty," and demand a retrial with a jury of men from his own county. This never took place, but he was released. In March, he was back in Marshalsea, from which he escaped two months after, possibly by bribing the guards and gaolers. After a month, he was back in prison, and was held until the following May, released on a bail of £200, a considerable sum.
Next, when Malory was to answer for his crimes, he could not be found. This was because he was in custody in Colchester, accused of more crimes involving robbery and the stealing of horses. Once again, he escaped, and was at liberty until November, when he was apprehended and returned to Marshalsea, under penalty for escape of £1000.
He seems to have lain low for a few years, being either imprisoned in Newgate Prison or Marshalsea. He obtained bail at least once, but was soon locked up again for failing to pay back loans made to him by various people for his extensive bail payments. All these terms in prison would have given him ample time to write Le Morte d'Arthur.
In and out of prison for years, he was pardoned at the ascension of Edward IV to the throne in 1461. After this, little is heard, spare that a grandson, Nicholas, was born to Robert, who soon died<clarification needed>. Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel died on 14 March 1470, and was buried with adequate splendor in Greyfriar's Chapel, near Newgate Prison. His being interred here suggests that his misdeeds were forgiven and that he possessed some wealth, either the result of his robberies, or some unknown patron, possibly Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, under whom Malory may have spent time as a payed spy.
Malory's tomb read:
"HIC JACET DOMINUS THOMAS MALLERE, VALENS MILES OB 14 MAR 1470 DE PAROCHIA DE MONKENKIRBY IN COM WARICINI,"
meaning:
"Here lies Sir Thomas Mallere, Valiant Knight. Died 14 March 1470, in the parish of Monkenkirby in the county of Warwick."
His grave was lost when Greyfriar's was dissolved by Henry VIII. His grandson, Nicholas lived to inherit his lands and was respected enough to be appointed High Sheriff in 1502.
Thomas Malory of Hutton Conyers
The fourth and final contender for the title of authorship is the little known Thomas Malory from Hutton Conyers, in Yorkshire. His claim was put forth by the aforementioned Professor William Matthews of California University. This claim was met with little enthusiasm, despite considerable linguistic evidence, which demonstrates that the author spoke a regional dialect which matches with the writing of Le Morte d'Arthur. This Malory's not being a knight is considered a large flaw.
In Fiction
A young Malory appears as a character at the end of T.H. White's book The Once and Future King, which was based on Le Morte d'Arthur; this cameo is included in the Broadway musical Camelot. Many modern takes on the Arthurian legend have their roots in Malory, including John Boorman's 1981 movie Excalibur, which includes selected elements of the book. Parts of Malory's book form a key element in Cynthia Harnett's childrens novel "The Load of Unicorn".
-Wikipeadia, the free encyclopedia
